Are you tired of feeling like your glute gains are stagnant despite putting in all the hard work? It’s time to shift the focus and unlock the true potential of your glute development!
In the world of bikini and wellness programs, we often see a repetitive cycle of glute kickbacks, hip thrusts, sumo stance squats, and various other exercises aimed at “feeling the squeeze” in those glutes. But are these exercises really maximizing your growth potential? The answer might surprise you.
The #1 reason you may not be seeing the glute gains you desire is the lack of emphasis on lengthened end range work within your program design. This has a two fold reason for being one of the biggest drivers of glute hypertrophy with a program design:
- Loading fibers is going to allow us to maximize the mechanical tension stimulus which is the PRIMARY STIMULUS for driving hypertrophy within skeletal muscle.
- Most patterns that load a lengthened glute are also major compounds that will allow for significant loading and overall leg development that can be biased towards glutes with proper set up.
Let’s take Nari’s journey as a classic example. When she joined us during the last 6 weeks of her prep, she was following a generic training program that did not cater to her individual needs and had her squeezing the living daylights out of her glutes. Despite some progress, her glute development was far from reaching its full potential.
This is where integrating exercises that loaded lengthened glute position into EVERY LEG DAY throughout her offseason allowed us to start to really see what Nari was capable of in her glute development.
What does this look like in real life when we built out Nari’s program?
- First, find the squat pattern that fits you the best and allows you to get your hips moving away from the bar/point of loading maximally at the bottom of the squat. This is the STAPLE for lengthened glute loading, and for most, this lands on barbell squatting.
- Cut the wide stance compound patterns! Sumo stance and super wide stance patterns pre-shorten the glute fibers and prevent you from actually lengthening the glute fully as you reach the bottom of the range. Our best bet is going to be a stance around shoulder width to allow for lengthening as those hips extend.
- Make your hinge an RDL! The slight knee bend in an RDL compared to an SLDL is going to allow us to get those hips further from the bar and shift more loading into the glute with that slight knee bend.
- Bring split squats into your program! With cueing yourself or the athlete into sitting down and back when executing these split squats, we can really get into some deep lengthened positions for the glute and drive up our total volume for glute training without the same level of fatigue more sets of barbell squatting would bring to the table.
What can happen when you implement this into your program design? You can get a one year difference in glute development that looks like Nari’s below!
Are you ready to take your glute gains to the next level? Join us in making sure your program design is tailored to what you need in order to make the most of your glute development by teaming up with your J3U Coach today!
Get your complimentary exploratory call, APPLY HERE
Stay strong,
Luke Miller, M.S. J3U-PC, PSL2
